Here's To The Hearts Left Behind
by Kari Kurofai
Summary: "We could set this whole world on fire," Gabriel says as they watch the wreckage burn down to into nothingness, "Just you and me."


**Here's To The Hearts Left Behind**

"_You need to run, now! I can't hold them back!"_

"_Dean, they're so strong . . ."_

These are Castiel's last words. He gasps them out, screams them over the roaring in his head. They're forced out before the cries of pain from the creatures clawing at him, at every last piece that's left of him, tearing him apart from the inside out. And, God, it hurts. _It hurts, it hurts, it hurts_. Not because the Leviathans are shredding him, destroying him, but because those words are his _last_. There are so many things he would have rather said, if he'd known he'd never get the chance to say them again. So many. But instead his last breaths are pleas for the only people he ever cared about to run, to save themselves. His last breath is Dean's name and there was so much more he wish he could have said.

"_I'm so sorry."_

"_I never meant to hurt you."_

"_Goodbye."_

"_. . . I love you . . ."_

But he doesn't say any of those things and instead pushes Dean away, praying to a God he's long ago given up on. _Save him, save him, save him_. His prayers have never been for himself.

And he dies. He dies and it's not like the last two times, a death so fast that he doesn't even feel it. This time it's agony. He's ripped and torn and tossed aside so that the remains fall apart and scatter until there is absolutely nothing left of Castiel inside the body of Jimmy Novak. He's gone.

All things must go somewhere, though. Nothing ever really vanishes. It just becomes lost, faded, forgotten. The pain melts away and when it does Castiel sighs. Even if it had been only seconds it had seemed like hours, hours and hours of being slowly clawed away into nothingness. Once the pain is gone Castiel opens his eyes. He doesn't know what he expected to find beyond the lingering hope that he'd still be back in the warehouse, that he'd somehow overpowered the Leviathans and gained control. Hopes are nothing more than ripples, however, impossible to catch and impossible to stop, vanishing the second you look away. The world he wakes in isn't the warehouse, Heaven, Hell, or Earth. For a heart stopping moment he fears it's Purgatory before he remembers that he had seen that too, and it was nothing like this.

The world he wakes in is white. The ground, the sky, the horizon, like and endless white room without corners or walls or ceilings. It's not empty, however, and when Castiel forces himself to sit up he finds that the space to be littered with things. And there is no other word for the items except for just that, _things_. Closest to him there's ratty old teddy bear, its fur curled and matted from years of love. A little further away sits a wrecked car, the paint scratched away along its hood where something hit it and an ominous smear of blood across the windshield, but there is no one inside or nearby. To the left lays a book with a worn cover. The spine is broken from too much use and the pages are thin near the corners were a thumb rubbed at them as they were turned.

Castiel picks it up and flips through it before he notices his own hands. Human hands. He reaches up and presses them to his face, running his fingers over features he knows well after years of wearing them. The trench coat is still draped over his frame and his tie is still askew, but this is not his vessel. He knows without confirmation that this is _his_ form, his body, as it appears in this world he's wound up in. Castiel frowns and looks at the book again. He would have said he was dead if he wasn't holding the book in his lap, if the ratty teddy bear wasn't lying just feet away, if the car held any occupants.

He traces the title of the book with a careful finger, following the lines of the letters and words that have faded with age. _Paradise Lost_.

OoOoOoOoOoO

There is no weather in the white world. The scenery changes if only by the objects that occupy it; the white horizon stretches on forever. Castiel marks out where he's been as he walks by scratching a line with a knife he found on anything he can call a landmark, the crashed car, a withered and fallen tree, an old rocking chair. He discovers an backpack in a pile of camouflage patterned things. It's patched and a little frayed, but it does its job just fine. He puts the book and the knife in there and carries it with him.

He does not need to eat or drink. As an angel he hadn't had to either, but he is oddly surprised to discover he doesn't in the white world. He'd half expected to, for some reason. But there is nothing around to consume anyways. For the hundredth time he wonders if he's dead.

There's no passage of time, not really. Castiel counts the seconds, minutes, hours, days, for a long while before he gives up counting. There's no point. No sun exists there to set, no moon to rise, no stars to light his way.

He tries to fly. Just once. It's not much different from when he'd discovered he was grounded in the diner and Dean had teased him, calling him a baby in a trench coat. He stands next to an intricate wooden desk and attempts to stretch his wings only to discover that they aren't there and that in the space between and behind his shoulder blades there is only skin and empty air. That's the moment he knows for sure that he's dead.

For awhile he gives up. He puts his little backpack down beside the desk and crawls into the tiny space underneath, where the chair would go. He leans against the wood and feels it's solid strength against his back where his wings should be. His knees are pulled up to his chest and he rests his forehead against them and just breathes. Never in his life has he felt so completely and utterly _alone_.

How long he stays there, curled in the shelter and shadow of the desk, Castiel doesn't know. There's no concept of time. Eventually, however, he leaves the place. He may be dead but nothing, _nothing_ ever stops existing. He exists. That's enough.

It's a lonely existence.

Time doesn't pass, days (or maybe it's nights) don't end. Castiel doesn't need to sleep, he feels that he could, if he wanted to, but he doesn't. The thought that he might not wake up keeps him awake.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

There's a house. Unlike many of the things in this world, it does not bear the worn, old look. Castiel approaches it warily and runs his fingers over the white paint. There are what looks to be scorch marks in a few places, higher up around a second floor window he can't reach, and a withered but sturdy tree arches up in front of it. For some reason it strikes him as familiar, though he feels he's forgotten why. He circles the place a few dozen times before squaring his shoulders and marching up the front steps. He doesn't expect there to be any occupants but he still braces himself when he opens the door.

The house is filled with silence. It rings in his ears far worse than the world outside because deep down Castiel knows that there should be something here, should be life and laughter. He wanders around and opens doors at random. There's an electronic toy racetrack in the cupboard under the stairs and he sits there for awhile, running the little cars round and round in an endless loop. The kitchen is well used and when Castiel puts his hand on the counter it comes away damp as if freshly cleaned dishes had been stacked there just moments before. A high chair is placed next to a table set for three and he dances his fingers over it as he passes, imagining a little family of four seated there. The stairs creak when he climbs them and he pauses at the top as he stares down an empty hallway branching off in multiple directions.

There's a noise.

It's faint and he only just manages to catch it, but it's there all the same. The light sound of footfall over carpet. Castiel is usually one for rational, for logic when it comes to potentially dangerous situations. The noise could be anything, a demon, a ghoul, a spirit of this world who means him nothing but harm. But instead of remembering these possibilities his only thought is, "_Finally_," before he practically trips over himself in his haste to get down the hall to the source of the noise.

He pushes open a door to one of the bedrooms and it bangs against the wall. A nursery lays before him with a crib at its far end, the walls and ceiling of the room smeared dark with smoke stains and burns while the crib remains intact. A figure is standing next to it, running his hands along the bars of the crib, his attention on the window just beyond it. When Castiel enters his gaze snaps up, startled, wide eyes widening further in shock at the sight of the angel.

"Gabriel," Castiel breaths, and he can hardly believe it. Gabriel's looking at him like he's seen a ghost, frozen like a deer in the headlights as Dean would say, and Castiel laughs, _actually laughs_.

"Castiel," Gabriel whispers, hesitant wonder clear in his tone like he can't quite bring himself to believe it.

One heartbeat, two, three, before they move and Gabriel practically leaps at him from across the room, enveloping Castiel in a bone crushing hug. Castiel's breath escapes him in one giant whoosh but he doesn't care (even though, yes, he does need that air now thank you very much). He throws his arms around Gabriel and hugs him equally tight. "I've missed you," he gasps as soon as he regains the ability to breath, Gabriel's hands on his arms and their bodies just inches apart because he refuses to let go.

"Me too, bro," Gabriel laughs.

Gabriel has been there awhile, a long time if time was passing in a way that could be recorded, and he tells Castiel this as they sit shoulder to shoulder against the wall of the nursery together. He tells Castiel how he's been alone, wandering as the other angel had been for what seemed like forever before he stumbled upon the house and stayed there because he didn't care enough to keep going.

"Plus, this place is special," he explains with a vague wave of his hand around the room. Castiel follows the movement before giving his brother a questioning look in response. Gabriel snorts, "Oh, don't tell me you don't recognize it. This is _their_ house."

And suddenly Castiel can see it as clear as if it was happening before his eyes. He sees a four year old Dean Winchester running across the carpet and hanging on to the side of the crib as he leans down and kisses six month old Sam goodnight. He sees John Winchester's grin as he lifts his son into his arms, sees Mary's fond smile where she stands in the doorway. He sees the memories left in the house to die away.

"This is the place where forgotten things go," Gabriel murmurs so quietly Castiel barely hears him. The archangel says it and his voice trembles around the words until Castiel reaches for him and takes his hand in his own. "We're forgotten," he says a little louder as he watches Castiel link their fingers together.

And, somehow, Castiel knows that's a thousand times worse than being dead.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

They stay in the house, though for whether it's for a long time or no time at all Castiel doesn't know. He sleeps for the first time, sprawled out on one of the beds with Gabriel laying beside him, propped up on one elbow and wide awake. "I'll make sure you don't vanish," he tells him because Castiel doesn't need to voice his fear for it to be known and understood. Whenever he wakes up Gabriel is still there. Sometimes he sits with his knees pulled up and a book leaning against them, other times he lays on his stomach, stretched out like a cat as he sketches in the pages of a half used notepad. But wherever he is he always keeps one hand on Castiel, on his chest, his shoulder, wrist, fingers threading through his hair while he sleeps. Castiel knows that he's as scared of letting go as he himself is of vanishing. If Gabriel lets go, stops touching him, he's alone again.

The first time he wakes to discover Gabriel is gone he panics. He finds Gabriel just moments later, however, in the same spot he was the first time, hovering near the crib in the nursery. He puts a hand on Gabriel's shoulder and stands there with him while Gabriel simply breathes. The trickster's eyes are closed and his hands are clenched over the wood of the crib's railing, knuckles deathly white with the intensity of his grip.

"It's my fault," he says after awhile and Castiel doesn't respond, not knowing what to say in return. "I knew, it was my job to know, and still I let it happen." 

Castiel glances at the blackened walls and ceiling and gives Gabriel's shoulder a squeeze. "You were supposed to let it happen," he reminds gently.

"And you were supposed to follow orders," Gabriel chuckles. "If I had stopped it that night none of this would have happened. They would have grown up _happy_, Castiel. And you and I wouldn't be here."

Castiel gives a low snort at this before lazily tracing the curve of Gabriel's shoulder down to his spine. "No. If it hadn't happened you'd still be an arrogant runaway and I'd still be a mindless, emotionless soldier. The lyrics of the song can change, Gabriel, but the tune remains the same. Even if you had stepped in it still would have happened, one way or another." 

Gabriel nods, "Yeah." He releases his death grip on the crib and sighs, leaning back into Castiel's touch. "I know it's stupid, but . . . I miss them, you know."

And Castiel knows these words, knows them in his mind and heart and grace, his very being because he does too. It's the one feeling that never fades, the ache that fills every part of him. "As do I," he whispers, and then he can't stand in the room, in the house any longer because it's filled with too many forgotten memories for him to bear, too many long gone sounds of laughter that he will never hear again.

They leave.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Walking isn't so bad when there's the two of them. Gabriel walks backwards so that he's facing Castiel, telling the tales of old tricks he'd played and judgments he'd passed. Sometimes they walk side by side and Gabriel makes it his mission to try and trip Castiel in any way possible, sticking his foot out at the most unexpected moments. He catches his brother by surprise a little more than half of the time and laughs when Castiel face plants into the white white ground. When Gabriel grows bored of this they simply walk side by side in silence, their fingers brushing together with every other step until one of them just links them together if only to reassure themselves that the other is still solid and real in the empty forgotten world.

They don't stop at any more houses, though every now and then one will loom on the horizon. In comparison to the Winchester house they all stand ominous and dark, full of memories Castiel doesn't know, doesn't want to know, and they steer clear of all of them. At least until they find themselves on the outskirts of a rusty, abandoned junkyard.

And Castiel knows this place instantly, more so than he knew the Winchester house because he's been here, stood amidst these cars and sat on some of their hoods shoulder to shoulder with Dean as they passed a bottle of whiskey between them in the night. He wanders between the cars now and his heart breaks. Gabriel keeps a hand on his back while Castiel gasps out, "No, no, no," over and over because how could this place, this house, this home be forgotten?

Bobby's house seems to crumble at the edges when Castiel tilts his head a certain way and long, deep cracks snake up the walls and the windows. It's broken and smells of gunpowder and smoke but it still stands. Castiel's doesn't want to know what happened, has no one to ask, and he stands on the porch for a long time before he dares to enter. The inside is mostly the same, a few books have fallen from their haphazard stacks and shelves which Castiel bends to pick up and put back. Gabriel doesn't question him on his actions. He moves through all the rooms and reaches to touch a little of everything, spell books still lying open, dishes still in the sink, the sheets of the guest beds still wrinkled as if someone had only just been there. This last one he lingers on, lets his fingers trace the creases over and over and if he closes his eyes and breathes in he can still smell him all over this room. _Dean_. He's slept here himself, when he'd fallen for that short period of time, and even then it had still been Dean's bed.

In that moment the ache of loneliness, of missing what he's lost, becomes unbearable. He shudders with it, it shakes every fiber of him, and when he tries he finds he can't even breath under the weight of the feeling. Gabriel is at his side in an instant, wrapping his arms around him and holding him close until Castiel can't help but cling to him in order to stay grounded.

"I know," Gabriel whispers and Castiel can see the same aching grief in his eyes, the same loss that can't be healed and he remembers that Gabriel has been here for far, far longer than he has. The thought makes the pain that much worse.

When Gabriel presses a kiss to the side of his mouth Castiel doesn't reject it. He fists his hands in the sleeves of Gabriel's shirt and tilts his head down to catch the other's mouth against his own entirely. This is something he knows, something he remembers and feels as easily as breathing. His mind sings of memories of leather back seats and motel mattresses as Gabriel surges against him, deepening the kiss and curling his fingers into Castiel's hair. His body speaks of the here and now, reminds him that he's forgotten, dead, gone, and that Dean is far beyond his reach and Gabriel is right in front of him.

"I can be your substitute," Gabriel murmurs against his mouth, "If you'll be mine."

Castiel wants to say he doesn't want that, that he loves Gabriel too even if it isn't the same, will never be that sort of love he had and still has for Dean, but he doesn't. He doesn't because Gabriel's eyes still spark with the same pain and in that moment Castiel finally understands the meaning of, "_I miss them_," of endless Tuesdays and changing channels. "Okay," he whispers, and lets Gabriel push him back onto the bed that still smells of Dean, still has that slight indent in the mattress where the hunter once slept.

He's not an expert in this area, as Dean might say, but he's not unfamiliar with it. Castiel tilts his head when Gabriel kisses along the side of his neck, his hands slowly mapping out the expanse of the archangel's chest. He slips his fingers under the hem of Gabriel's shirt and rucks it up, watching with mild fascination as Gabriel shivers at his touch. Gabriel hums and works at undoing his tie and divesting him of his trench coat and shirt in the same motion, tossing them all aside. "You do this before?" he asks as he presses a kiss to Castiel's sternum, "With Winchester?"

"Yes," Castiel gasps out when Gabriel bites down on the spot he had only just kissed.

Gabriel makes an approving noise and moves lower, kissing and nipping along Castiel's ribs. "Think of him," it isn't a request but rather a command and Castiel pauses as it's uttered.

"No."

The archangel blinks and draws back, hovering over the younger angel with a bewildered look. "No?" he echoes.

"No." Castiel reaches up and brackets Gabriel's face with his hands. "You are Gabriel, archangel of judgment and prophecy, trickster in mind and in heart, and I would not ask you to be anyone else."

"You wish it, though," Gabriel says softly, bringing Castiel's hand to his mouth and kissing the open palm. "Don't tell me you don't. You wish he were here instead of me."

Castiel shakes his head, "One life isn't worth more than another, no matter who they are. A life should not be traded, or bought, or bargained for, Gabriel. You're here, he's there, and that's how it's come to be, there's no changing that." He pushes himself up onto an elbows and wraps his other arm around Gabriel's shoulders. "We're not replacing one for the other, substituting as you put it."

Gabriel shudders, lets himself be pulled down when Castiel nudges him, and kisses along the angel's jaw line. "Then what are we doing?"

"Seeking comfort," Castiel says. And it is as simple as that. They have each other, lost together in a forgotten, blank world, and in the end they need this as much as they need to touch, to breath. It is a reassuring of a continued existence, of the fact that they aren't entirely alone. And that's okay.

The bed creaks under them when Castiel arches his back, Gabriel's fingertips thoughtfully skimming the white scar that spans most of his chest. He traces the banishing sigil around the circle that encompasses the majority it and over the Enochian symbols at its edges. Castiel watches the dance of his fingers over skin with glazed eyes before Gabriel sits up and strips himself of his own clothes and deposits them in a haphazard clump at the end of the bed. Just as Castiel maintains the deepest of scars across his skin, so too does the archangel in the form of a single puckered scar just under his ribs. Castiel fans his fingers out over it, his palm just covering the edges if placed right. It's still pink in some places as if half healed and when he touches it Gabriel shivers bodily. It is the stain of his death.

"I'm proud to bear it," Gabriel murmurs when he notices the grief in Castiel's gaze at the sight. "I wouldn't have gone out any other way." He leans down and works on the younger angel's belt. Castiel leans back , sprawled across the wrinkled sheets which he clenches between his fingers when Gabriel kisses a mark into the skin of his inner thigh.

Gabriel is so careful, almost unnaturally so with every move that he makes, as if he's scared Castiel will break. Castiel thinks that he might, if only from Gabriel's cautious but heartfelt smile. He sucks little red spots and lines on Castiel's neck, his back, his legs, his wrists, claiming the places as his own. He hums when he takes Castiel into his mouth, a tune the younger angel knows well though he can not remember the words. The notes alone remind him of the dull rumble and roar of a well kept engine, of squeaky doors and the rattle of children's building blocks stuck in the vents. Gabriel sketches out old Enochian poems on Castiel's chest as he works him open with the other hand, murmuring the words as he writes them in a voice only angels can hear. When Castiel lets him in he tangles their fingers together over the sheets that still carry the scent of goodbyes left unsaid. Castiel's back arches and Gabriel holds him still, tightening his grip on the other's hand and grounding him even as Castiel gasps and cries out, his legs gripping Gabriel's waist and holding him as close as possible.

"Shhhh," Gabriel hushes against Castiel's ear as he moves, hips stuttering and breathing ragged. "Shhh, it's okay, Cas, I've got you. I've got you."

And Castiel clings to him, utterly wrecked with tears pooling in the corners of his eyes as he presses his face into the crook of Gabriel's shoulder. "Don't let me go," he pleads, nails biting into Gabriel's skin where his wings should have been. _Don't let me go. Don't let me disappear. Don't let me vanish. Don't let me be forgotten._

"I've got you," Gabriel repeats.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

They move on.

Castiel is reluctant to leave Bobby's house behind, even as empty and haunting as it stands. Gabriel pulls him away though, leading him by the hand from the place until it's so far behind them that Castiel knows he'll never see it again. The thought itself is heartbreaking, and he gasps with the pain of it.

They sleep regularly now, curled up under a couple of blankets they take with them from Bobby's. Gabriel sets an old pickup on fire with some matches he took without Castiel noticing or stopping him. When it's lit they stand back from its blazing shell, shielding their eyes when it explodes in a beautiful, towering blast of smoke and flame. "We could set this whole world on fire," Gabriel says as they watch the wreckage burn down to into nothingness, "Just you and me."

"And what would we be left with?" Castiel asks.

Gabriel shrugs, "Dunno."

They find a Christmas tree. It's a little dingy thing and Gabriel dubs it the "Gas Station Tree." It sits alone in the middle of the white with drooping limps and long browned needles. They almost pass it by until Castiel sees the little glint of something in its branches, golden-brass and familiar. He kneels beside the pathetic little tree and untangles the thing from the needles, holding it up by the black chord and staring at it. He knows the object well, the sight and weight of the little brass amulet tugs at his heart and leaves him breathless. This too has been forgotten, left to rot here in this lost and shattered world. It had once been a treasured thing, a gift between brothers, and later a symbol of hope placed in a God who gave nothing in return.

"Come here," Gabriel says, pulling Castiel up by his arm and taking the amulet from him. He stretches the chord between his hands, looking at it thoughtfully before he loops it over Castiel's head and leaves it to fall around the angel's neck. "There," he murmurs, trailing his fingers down the chord and to the pendant, over the little face molded from brass, "It's yours now."

But it's not, they both know that. Castiel remembers its weight from when he carried it in hand, held against his palm as he searched for a Father that he would never find. He knows the cold of it, the cool solid metal when it touched his bare chest, dangling down between bodies when Dean breathed against his ear. It falls now against his sternum, under the collar of his shirt and close to his heart. It's not his, but he does not leave it behind because doing so would be too much to bear.

OoOoOoOoOoO

There's a playground, still dusted over with dirt and sand and the fingerprints of small children. It's rusted in places and it creaks under their weight, but it holds. They stay there for an immeasurable amount of time, laying in the curves of the slide and just talking. Gabriel teaches Castiel how to swing, pushing him and ducking under before he lets go, the younger angel soaring over his head with a startled shout. "Almost like flying!" Gabriel yells, and Castiel smiles at the plummeting feeling in his stomach each time the swing curves back down towards the ground.

It's there that they find him. He wanders there while Castiel is asleep on the upper level of the structure, his head in Gabriel's lap while the trickster runs his fingers through his hair. "There's someone here," the archangel hisses just loud enough to wake him and Castiel jolts and sits up, eyes scanning for the intruder. He stands not far from the swings and when Castiel looks at him he wonders how he's even standing at all. His clothes are dirty and torn, covered in ash and soot and the skin beneath is still white-pink from healing burns and cuts. His eyes are almost lifeless, and he appears not to notice the two angels on the playground just above the slide as he moves to lean against the swing set, his entire body trembling under its own weight. Castiel is almost instantly at his side, Gabriel trailing behind with a confused and nervous frown.

Castiel cautiously extends a hand towards the newcomer, lifting it to his face when he receives no protest. He wipes away the ash that has built up there, smudging it across the boy's cheek with his thumb. Though he's covered with soot from head to toe Castiel doesn't need to see his skin to recognize him, to know the blue eyes speckled with bits of green that echo those of his brothers'. "Adam," he murmurs, draping his trench coat over the shaking boy's shoulders.

Adam doesn't respond. His eyes are void of emotion and he briefly looks up when Castiel utters his name but otherwise doesn't react. Here is the child, only a child of barely nineteen, left behind in the fires of Hell to be tortured and burned until he died, forgotten by the blood who claimed that family was more important than anything. Castiel envelops him in his arms and holds him close until he stops trembling.

They clean Adam up and find him new clothes. He hangs on to Castiel's trench coat like he can't stand to be parted with it and Castiel lets him, smiling at the way Adam's skinny frame practically swims in it more so than the angel himself. Adam doesn't talk, Castiel doesn't question. He reads aloud to the youngest Winchester from a book of children's stories as often as he can, Adam sitting between him and Gabriel on the hood of yet another old car, the edge of a bed in a forgotten family home, the end of a dock that stretches out over nothing at all. It's a long time before he sleeps, and Castiel holds him until he drifts off every time, whispering to him as his eyes flutter closed.

"You're safe. It's okay. There's no one here to hurt you."

He wonders if he made the right choice. After his mistake with Sam he'd left the boy behind, thinking it best for him to keep his soul rather than to walk without it as Sam had. For the first time he thinks that, knows that, he made all the wrong decisions after Dean had left. Adam clings to him until he falls asleep, chest rising and falling as he fights down the fears that fill his mind and hide behind his emotionless eyes, fears he does not name because he's lost the ability to, and Castiel weeps for him.

"My fault," he says when Gabriel kisses away his tears and Gabriel shakes his head.

"No. How could you have known?"

"He was only a child."

"Aren't they all? Dean could have saved him too, had the chance to just as you did I'm sure. But he didn't. If you're to blame then so is he."

And Castiel does blame him, at least as much as he blames himself. He cradles Adam's sleeping form to him where he sits on the edge of the bed, Gabriel sprawled out and spent on the mattress beside them. For the first time he almost, almost hates Dean. Except that deep in his heart he never could.

"How dare you forget us, leave us behind," he whispers as he runs a soothing hand over Adam's back when the boy makes a distressed sound in his sleep. "After everything, this is what we deserve?"

"We've always been just puppets on a string," Gabriel relents from off to the side, his palms digging into his eyelids.

It takes awhile, but eventually they keep going, walking further and further each day across the never ending white. Adam keeps up, one hand fisted into the arm of Castiel's shirt at all times as he trails a step or two behind. Gabriel teaches Castiel songs, old show tunes and pop rock ballads that he describes as, "The bane of Dean Winchesters Classic Rock Heart." Sometimes he hums out Enochian hymns, leaving out the words that can only be sung in a voice Adam wouldn't understand. He asks Adam questions though he knows the boy won't answer, somehow _can't_ answer, and just smiles when he only gets silence in return.

That's all they ever get from Adam besides the occasional cry or whimper in his sleep. Until Gabriel asks, "Hey, when the angels pulled you out of the ground, which ones were there?" He hasn't been told the story of how Castiel took down every last angel standing guard over the place Adam rose from, so he actually doesn't know.

Adam does.

"Castiel," he says.

They all stop. Adam still has one hand on Castiel's arm and he stares at his feet and the white white ground as if he hadn't said anything at all. Gabriel's eyes widen and Castiel puts a hand on Adam's back.

"That's right," he can't help but smile.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

They find her parked under a willow tree. It's only by coincidence that they don't just pass her by, the leaves of the sprawling tree covering her almost completely from view until Adam tugs at Castiel's shirt and points.

Gabriel parts the willow tendrils and stares, Castiel and Adam hovering behind him. In their hearts it was the last thing they expected to ever, _ever_ find in this desolate forgotten land, and seeing it now makes each of them shudder with anguish.

It's the Impala, her sleek black paint unmarked and her windows still intact, as pristine and well kept as they knew her in life.

For Gabriel it's the car whose engine he heard from far, far off where he stood in an upper room of the main building of Springfield University. It's the car he killed Dean Winchester in front of one cloudy Wednesday, watching as Sam cried out in grief as he held his brother's body to him. It's the car that chased him down for six months that never happened, the car he crouched in the back seat of the night he made up his mind and stood up to Lucifer.

For Adam it's the car that sat on the outskirts of the old junkyard beyond the windows in the house he'd been held in, away from the angels that whispered lies and false promises in his ears. It's the car that came rumbling down into the graveyard and interrupted what should have been the Apocalypse. It was one of the last things he saw before he was dragged down, down, down into the pit and the cage.

For Castiel, it's home. He has lain in the back seat, injured and bleeding, whole and sleeping, under Dean's body and over it with nothing but their mingled breaths and words between them. He has sat in the passenger seat, "Flying copilot," Dean had once joked in a time when he and Sam had gone their separate ways. He'd leaned against each one of the windows in one way or another, shoulder, forehead, hand, the glass cool against his skin as he listened to Dean talk. The radio had blasted out music he didn't know, and Dean had sung along, unperturbed by the gaze of the angel on him or his brother's annoyed glares. Castiel opens the door now and touches the little toy soldier jammed into the ashtray, nothing but a toy in a car that held all the memories of the world, or at least the world as Castiel had known it. He goes to the trunk and finds the initials carved into the inside, S.W. and D.W. His fingers fall into the grooves of them and finally, _finally_, Castiel cries.

Here stands the Impala, the car that had been home to two homeless children, boys, men, and once their fallen and now forgotten angel. The car that had saved the world just by existing, the car that still echoed with a thousand memories now left behind. Castiel cries, his hands braced against the side of the Impala the only thing keeping him standing. Adam clings to his arm and Gabriel moves to envelop them both in a tight hug. How can it be here, this car, the heart and soul of two men who had saved the world by accident? Castiel sobs, his body wracked with the grief in the sound, and cries out for all that has been lost.

They think about leaving it behind, of letting the willow branches cover it until it faded away with the rest of the forgotten things. But Adam decides for them, opening the door and sitting in the drivers seat with a hoarse, "I had a license, once," that shocks both the angels, not just with his words but with how determined he sounds. Castiel sits in the passenger seat and Gabriel sprawls out in the back, air drumming when Adam turns on the radio that somehow still plays old classic rock. They drive.

"We're the forgotten," Adam says over the lull of the radio, far down the non existent road. His voice still cracks with disuse and they're usually lucky to get ten sentences out of him a day but slowly, surely, he's getting better. He taps his fingers against the steering wheel and smiles for the first time, a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and reminds Castiel so very much of the boy's brothers. "We're the forgotten, but we're not gone."

And that's enough.


End file.
